Q1 2024 Green Plains Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Phil Boggs; Executive Vice President, Investor Relations; Green Plains Inc

Todd Becker; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Green Plains Inc

James Stark; Chief Financial Officer; Green Plains Inc

Adam Samuelson; Analyst; Goldman Sachs

Kristen Owen; Analyst; Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.

Craig Irwin; Analyst; Roth MKM

Andrew Strelzik; Analyst; BMO Capital Markets

Manav Gupta; Analyst; UBS

Carol Zhang; Analyst; Jefferies

Steve Byrne; Analyst; Bank of America

Jordan Levy; Analyst; Truist Securities

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Green Plains, Inc. first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Following the company's prepared remarks, instructions will be provided for Q&A. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.
And I will now turn the call over to your host, Phil Boggs, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations.

Phil Boggs

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Green Plains Inc. First Quarter 2024 earnings call. Participants on today's call are Todd Becker, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jim Stark, Chief Financial Officer; and several other members of Green Plains senior leadership team. There's a slide presentation available and you can find it on the Investor page under the Events and Presentations link on our website.
During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could materially differ because of factors discussed in today's press release and the comments made during this conference call and in the Risk Factors section of our Form 10 K Form 10 Q and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Becker.

Todd Becker

Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our call today. We were not alone in managing through a challenging market during the first quarter, driven by industry oversupply from elevated production during the mild winter, leading to an increased stocks position combined with weaker vegetable oil markets and compressed protein markets. As well, leading to a weak first quarter and negative EBITDA of $21.5 million, although an improvement from last year of about 22%. The typical first quarter doldrums hit the industry as well as a quick deep freeze that had outside outsized impact on some of our plants. Since we saw the extended margin compression, we took the opportunity to launch two major refreshes in Mount Vernon and oh by. And so we can run beyond historical norms at some of our best plants when completed, especially at all buying, which was one of our historically strongest margin plants that we've had for the last 15 to 17 years. As I said, both of these are happening and traditionally strong margin sites are going to have an outsize effect in a low margin environment.
Operationally, we performed well with utilization at about 92% and another strong quarter of protein production and an improved margin environment, we can start to push towards high 90% broad rates with all the refresh investments we have made and are making speaking of margins, though, we have recovered a bit but still a long way to go. Q2 margins now range from the mid high single digits to the low 10s across the rest of the quarter on average for the rest of the year every month has returned to a positive margin on the curve, which is unique for this industry at this time of year. This is at least a $0.25 a gallon improvement off the lows in some months. We'll talk fundamentals a little bit later on the fuel markets during the quarter, though we continue to execute on our transformation strategy across the board, completing the acquisition of Green Plains Partners in early January, started commissioning of the SSCT. demonstration facility with our partners at Shell and March, commissioning our CST. project in Shenandoah as we speak, as well as bringing our MSC protein joint venture at their Olson ethanol in North Dakota online over the last couple of weeks, in addition to launching our sequence brand for our 60 Pro products, we achieve these key milestones, and I will discuss more about these areas as we go through the call it may seem like this is all not happening during times of macro weakness, but I can assure you that it is and we have a lot of positive updates to share on sugar protein and carbon, which is part of the reason we see positive margins currently for the rest of 2024.
Note, the recent green SAF modeling update demonstrate that if you can make low-carbon fuels, you have an asset more valuable today than you did on Tuesday morning. I will show you that path as well. We continue to anticipate it as that as spring maintenance and summer driving season progresses, we expect to see seasonal stock draws lead to strengthening base margins and lead us out of the winter doldrums that we have been stuck in for the last several months. Corn plantings look off, look to be off to an excellent start, which will lead to a more favorable basis values as we move through the summer. We remain primarily open to the margin structure across all of our products.
One quick update on the strategic review. The Board and the leadership team are fully engaged with evaluating our strategic options. As we have disclosed last quarter, we continue to believe the value of our platform is now reflected in our stock price even more so after the Greek update that I mentioned. Hopefully you saw during the quarter, we announced our new specialty ingredient brand sequence for our 60% protein product. We are really excited about this brand and what it represents for the high-value aquaculture feed and pet food markets we serve, as well as our ability to begin to custom tailor nutritional solutions for our customers beyond just selling them protein, which is why we call the sequence. Leslie and the innovation team have been working hard on a very specific tailored taste and texture solutions that can be combined with sequence.
Another reason we are getting traction with our customers. Our Cequent sales have been increasing as we approach the equivalent of one plant's production with a recurring sales representing approximately 10% of our production capacity. Interest in this product has been strong. We believe we're at we are on track to exit the year at the 20% to 30% capacity being committed to repeat sales customers and anticipate expanding it from there with the goal of eventually moving to 100% of our production to sequence. This product separates us from more commoditized 50 pro market that has been under pressure from soybean meal Sukari that spread between soybean meal and corn, which has been influenced by rapidly expanding soy crush capacity although we have seen soy meal prices elevate quite nicely over the last several days, based margins for our 50 Pro were under pressure from both a tighter protein spreads as well as decline in vegetable oil pricing. But we have always said we justified the investment with 50% protein, so build them for 60% slash sequence or higher are sequenced protein becomes a differentiator in the long run.
Let me tell you why we're getting traction. This is a novel 60% protein. It's the world's first plant-based, 60% protein ingredients made from a combination of corn in the East. It is fermented for intestinal health Corning each providing greater bioavailability and nutritional benefits for the customers we serve.
Lastly, on this topic, I'm very pleased to report that in a recent analysis titled emerging protein-rich ingredients for aquaculture, our protein ingredient received the highest accolades in a recent European report that continues to validate our view that our scalable and low carbon intensity protein products, very much welcomed addition to the supply of quality agreements gradients for agriculture, but which we are in trials and some of the highest values in the markets at a value markets in the world today with ethanol at a roughly $1 a gallon discount to our Bob, it makes sense to max blend. And we are seeing strong exports and can end up the year a record year for U.S. exports, potentially even exceeding 2018, 1.7 billion gallons. And I'll hand the call over to Jim to provide an update on the overall financial results. I'll come back on the call to provide an updated strategic outlook and how carbon and sugar will play a larger role going forward.

James Stark

Thanks, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Green Plains consolidated revenues for the first quarter were $597.2 million, which was $235.7 million or approximately 28% lower than the same period a year ago. The lower revenue is attributable to lower prices for ethanol dried distillers grains and corn oil in Q1 of 24 as compared to the same period a year ago. On average prices were down in the range of 25% to 30% year over year, while we also saw a drop in our commodity inputs with corn and natural gas down significantly year over year and with ethanol trading at a significant discount to our Bob margin opportunities were limited in the first quarter due to the ethanol introduced by Todd mentioned earlier, our plant utilization rate was 92% during the first quarter compared to 87.5% run rate reported in the same period last year and only slightly lower than the fourth quarter of 2023. We anticipate our plants to continue to perform in the mid 90% range of our stated capacity for 2024, barring any events outside of our control for the quarter, we reported net loss attributable to Green Plains of $51.4 million or $0.81 per diluted share compared to a loss of $70.3 million or $1.20 per diluted share for the same period in 2023. Ebitda for the quarter was a negative $21.5 million compared to negative $27.7 million in the prior year period.
Depreciation and amortization amortization expense was lower by $3.9 million versus a year ago at $21.5 million. We anticipate that D&A will average approximately $22 million per quarter for 2024. We realized a loss of $9.3 million in consolidated crush in Q1 of 24. That compares to a loss of $12.5 million in the prior year. With the acquisition of the Partnership completed in January, we have combined the partnership segment into ethanol production since the partnership was primarily driven by ethanol related items, including the throughput fees and storage tanks associated with our ethanol plants. We have previously added much of that back to the consolidated crush, but there are some minor adjustments from combining the entire partnership, which are reflected in the 8-K filed this morning. Also, the operating maintenance expense line was combined into the cost of goods sold for the first quarter, our SG&A expense for all segments was $31.8 million, which is in line with the prior year number. Interest expense was $7.8 million for the quarter, which includes the impact of debt amortization and capitalized interest and was $2 million favorable from the prior year's first quarter. The decrease was primarily due to lower debt balances, offset by slightly higher rates quarter to quarter.
Our income tax expense for the first quarter was $300,000 compared to a tax expense of $3.4 million for the same period in 2013. At the end of the quarter, the net loss net federal net loss carryforwards available to the Company were $89.6 million which may be carry forward indefinitely.
Our normalized tax rate for the quarter Green Plains, excluding minority interest, is around 24%. And we anticipate that our tax rate for 2014 will also average at 24% rate. Our liquidity position at the end of first quarter decreased from year end due to cash used in the completion of the partnership acquisition capital investments made during the quarter and the results from operations. However, I am certain we continue to be well positioned to achieve the next steps of our transformation plan. Our liquidity included $277.4 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, along with approximately $33 million available under our working capital revolver for the first quarter, we allocated $22 million of capital across the platform, including $13 million to our clean sugar initiative, about $4 million to other growth initiatives and approximately $5 million towards maintenance, safety and regulatory capital. We anticipate CapEx for the year will now be in the range of $95 million to $115 million 24. This range excludes the capital equipment needed for Nebraska carbon spread capture initiatives. We do have financing lined up to cover those needs and the plan to discuss these items further in the near future as the project progresses, our capital strategy continues to be to deploy capital into the highest and best returning projects.
Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Todd.

Todd Becker

Thanks, Jim. So when we embarked on our journey several years ago, the IRA did not exist. So while our go-forward mix of opportunities may have changed, the forward outlook in aggregate remains the same for 2025 because of the IRA. and the 45 Z clean fuel production credits and the opportunities these present to produce low carbon intensity fuels it is driving a reprioritization of our overall capital allocation strategy because of the guaranteed returns backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. We remain confident that our advantaged, Nebraska approach and carbon capture could begin to yield significant returns as early as next year. Our three Nebraska facilities, which represents 287 million gallons of capacity at present will be on a pipeline project that already has its trunk line in the ground as a converted natural gas pipeline. So building the laterals to our plants is relatively straightforward. Currently, our pipeline partners continue to make solid progress, and we are on track for starting up in the second half of 2025, and we plan to begin ordering the capture equipment in the next several months. We expect construction to start later this year. Given that we have first mover status, we are actively exploring redeploying capital to expand the production capacities for our Central City and Wood River, Nebraska facilities by 30 to 40 million gallons to take advantage to take advantage of the early days of the 45 Z clean fuel production credit and position ourselves as a preferred early feedstock supplier to alcohol to jet sustainable aviation fuel producers. We have already seen interest in the supply from multiple different parties expect, especially with the Greek SAF product update announced there are these are a couple of our premier facilities already have MSC deployed and have abundant local corn supply with York we plan to decarbonize distillation with a small CapEx projects to reduce energy usage, which reduces carbon intensity as as today qualifies for 45 Q. And we want to change that and opportunistically take advantage of early 45 Z economics. But what it really doesn't stop in Nebraska, we have four other plants on a somewhat carbon pipeline and they continue to make good progress as well on permitting in the state that we will operate in with all that said, at current e-commerce once up and running, we expect Nebraska alone to contribute over $100 million per year in carbon EBITDA starting in the second half of 2025. With the current progress we have made, again, all backed by the 45 G. tax credit, our MSC, Synta and MSC and protein since our Fairmont and Madison locations have faced permitting delays for the proposed MSC protein projects for some time now and we literally received our Illinois permit yesterday, we previously had made the decision because of the carbon ECONOMICS to put the capital allocation capital allocation for that on hold for the time being and only for the time being well, we turn our attention to our significant return price profile of the advantaged Nebraska strategy, along with potential clean sugar facility, which would be two to three times larger than what we have in Shenandoah, Iowa today. The returns associated with both carbon capture and clean sugar are driving this and are significantly better than anything. Else we can do. We will continue to evaluate our overall asset mix, and we are focused on the future of decarbonization, decarbonization and clean sugar as our top two priorities after 60% protein or sequence going forward when we evaluate our portfolio part of the permit in Illinois, also the ability to run the plant and an expanded rate to reduce OpEx per gallon and improve margins at that site. As we always have had spare capacity, we can not run under the previous per per permit. We also have several projects to be able to capture carbon and Mount Vernon and Madison underway under review as well. Those will just be a little further out. While we have not issued a press release, I'm happy to update you on our CST. project clean sugar project in Shenandoah. It is now mechanically complete and we have begun commissioning over the last month and we expect to produce on-spec product in the next week or so. In addition, we are negotiating multi-year contracts for our low carbon intense dextrose corn syrups, and we are continuing with substantial late-stage discussions for all of our 2025 volumes to take all of our capacity, we expect to start to sign some agreements in even in the next week or so. The clean sugar technology is a game changer for Green Plains and sets us apart as we actively explore plans for site number two.
Lastly, based on current markets and pricing, the uplifting converted margins, it remained the same at a minimum of $0.6 a gallon uplift with some products and volumes significantly higher in the $0.8 per gallon or $0.9 per gallon range. This is another reason we want to allocate capital to this versus protein at this point, especially now that we have Shenandoah beginning to operate. It's a tax credit and updated remodel from earlier this week sets the stage for increased asset valuations for any plant that can decarbonize the SaaS guidance has given us a starting point for rulemaking for the all-important 45 Z clean fuels production credit, which begins this coming January just eight months from now. And we remain optimistic this will carry through to that rulemaking.
A couple of takeaways here. And I think they're really important for everybody to understand the guidance for SAF. was in line with our expectations and to their credit. They actually lowered some of the unreasonable land-use change penalties associated with corn as a feedstock for alcohol to jet climate. Smart Ag grasses practices also allowed to count towards CI. reduction in corn. It's important to remember that 40 b. for SAP, it's just a stepping stone to the 45 Z clean fuel production credit one really important. And lastly, really important point. The common misconception this week on the recent SAF guidance, is that low CI. corn will be required to qualify and this is just not the case with CCS or carbon capture. You can get your score low enough to qualify for SAF. And after that, the lower C guy corn is just additive to those economics. And we have a significant program around that as well bottom line, there is now a path for U.S. corn-based ethanol to qualify as a feedstock for producing alcohol to jet SAF. And the plants that they can decarbonize are going to be at a distinct advantage. And this gives us an increased confidence in our advantaged Nebraska strategy and believe that APATJ. sustainable aviation fuel has the potential to fundamentally revalue our asset base or any other plant that's on a pipeline today. By the way, we are just checking, but to build a new ethanol plant in United States in our view could be as high as $2.50 a gallon because we have priced them to CDE. cards related to one alcohol to jet becomes a reality, and that's a minimum price at this point. We continue to see Chinese, quote unquote, Yuko weighing on the domestic veg oil prices, including our renewable corn oil, hopefully new and expanded our D. capacity coming online should help to rectify this imbalance, and we remain bullish on the long-term value of our low carbon intensity corn oil. However, there is recent pricing pressure from our prior projections when we're using $0.7 a pound is now currently in the high 30s to low 40s, resulting in EBITDA from our base corn oil uplift to the base ethanol margin of $80 million to $90 million for 2024. Our MSC uplift has always included an uplift from corn oil yield increases as well, which is where some base pressure came from unit combined with the pricing pressure from lower soybean meal spreads during Q1, although starting to recover with a $40 ton rally from the lows, we are experiencing an MSC uplift of seven to $0.12 a gallon. But we believe sequence margin will more than make up this difference anymore, which is why we are focused on customer conversions every day in every market around the world.
When we look forward ahead ahead to the opportunity in front of us in 2025, if we assume some normalization while our mix has changed. Our guidance has not. We are still on track for a near $300 million EBITDA contribution from our protein corn oil, clean sugar and decarbonization pillars excluding any common net contribution from base ethanol, corporate overhead, our ag and energy segments, which by the way, has performed well last year and off to a good start this year I tried every which way I can, but we keep coming up with this result, which is consistent with what we outlined at the beginning of our transformation in 2025 and protein. Our 640 million gallons of converted converted capacity, including half of our ownership in our joint venture, could generate a baseload of $80 million to $120 million. As protein spreads widen back out, we will increase and will eight we will see an increase as we as 30% to 50% of our platform moves to sequence. And we believe in 2025, we also look to add another one of one production facility in the future, as we mentioned earlier, but we want to make sure we allocate capital to the best projects today corner. All contributions on the base business are fully reliant on prices, but 2025 should see some recovery as we are approaching the end of the biodiesel tax credit on December 31st, and corn oil is a advantaged feedstock. Relative to those valuations. The contribution should be a base of $100 million and grow from there in sugar. Our belief that Shenandoah will be fully lined out as we go through this year, and the facility could generate a base of $15 million to $25 million a year on a full year basis, depending on what the customer mix ends up. Again, we have strong customer demand and as mentioned, we expect food-grade certification in around the 90 days after we make the on-spec product, hopefully in the next week or so.
Finally in decarbonization and Nebraska, first strategy is on track. And based on the latest remodel could generate up to and possibly exceeding $110 million a year on an annualized basis from our Nebraska assets alone beginning in 2025 and grow from there if we are able to quickly expand those assets. And additionally, when Summit Carbon pipeline comes online as well, we will also continually review our asset mix and where we have opportunities to monetize an asset pay off debt and delever our balance sheet while focusing on our Nebraska first mover advantage where we can combine expansion at 50 million to 70 million gallons could have an outsized return due to carbon capture. We will do that. Much of our asset base is unencumbered, and we have no near-term maturities and remain in a strong cash position. We are also focusing though on reducing our cost of debt as well as we've seen some opportunities to do that as well. So why you see that the mix has changed from where we originally laid out the transformation. Our efforts to transform this earnings power have not wavered, notwithstanding a weak Q1 we just reported. Thanks for joining our call today.
We can now start the Q&A session.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. And we will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Adam Samuelson, Goldman Sachs.

Adam Samuelson

Thank you or good morning, everyone. Good morning, time bomb. So I thought there were a lot of ground to cover. We would look to start on just the the ethanol market outlook and kind of where we go from here, things back back in better balance.

Todd Becker

You talked about forward curves that are more favorable than the past, but you're also talking about the business being being open in help us think about the demand side we seem sluggish on what you're seeing on exports that might be the critical swing on. That's the main balance and where you're seeing on spot margins today and certainly through the second quarter, just about margins today across our platform kind of range on average between us eight, $0.12 a gallon, somewhere in that range on on May and June. At this point and post that mid to high single digits, really kind of across the platform, maybe some a little bit lower, a little bit higher in some places, all all inclusive and so that has come off significantly from the lows. And we saw mid 10s to even in the negative 20s across the curve. And we've seen a significant rally and the back end of the curve as we'd be typically when we see those type of numbers, it's not going to it won't hold very long. So you have a carry in the corn market and we had a flat a flat to inverted ethanol market. That's kind of changed a little bit. We have to see more contribution from the simple crush has we've seen less contribution going forward from things like like corn oil and distillers and those and those type of things, although natural gas is now a significant tailwind price-wise. So generally speaking from a demand perspective, we've seen some pretty good weeks on driving demand kind of coming out of winter. We have also now as we enter into more of a summer driving season hopefully get ourselves well positioned as an industry to take advantage of that. We remain a well over $1 under on well, we range remains at $1 or so under our above and with the rand values in the mid 50s or so at any given point, that's $1.50 blend credit. So we've seen blends as high as 10.5% here recently. So generally speaking, the base business in the US and gas demand hopefully recovers kind of post last week and the week before as we get into driving season, especially with higher fair capacity rates and less capacity. And we're very we're very optimistic that the summer will act that typically the same that it has on top of that we're so well priced in the world kind of ethanol today. And I think more importantly, when you look at the last half of the year, we actually see Brazil as an opportunity to price into even with the tariffs that are in place as they do not have the excess ethanol capacity at this point to take care of all their backup demand so when you kind of lay it all up and you look at if we can just keep production steady as an industry and maintain some self-discipline, I think where we can set ourselves up for a continuing drop as we kind of come through the end of this this maintenance season. But generally speaking, margins are positive at this time of year across across the board fully and and we're optimistic that that can continue to improve.
Jim, did you have something?

James Stark

Yes. Just from an export perspective that and we're running about 25.6% ahead for the first quarter this year versus last year. So that's what gives us they optimism that this could be a record year for us from ethanol export standpoint.

Adam Samuelson

Okay. And that's very helpful. Now they are all just over to the some of the strategic initiatives and maybe talking about the clean liquid sugar piece and talk about being in kind of late stage negotiations with different different offtakers as you're seeing the Shenandoah plant commission.
And as you're getting getting close to the end of some of those pricing negotiations can talk about how you're envisioning kind of the EBITDA uplift from that from that plant, both on clearly the second half of the year, but just the cadence and magnitude of EBITDA that we should start to the fact that yes, we said relative to competition.

Todd Becker

Yes, thank you. We said prior to these calls, contribution will ramp up during 24 because the plant that we're going to take a slow, slow burn startup as we as we say, just to make sure every single thing we do, he's on track and on spec and we want to really want to get the food-grade certification over the next 90 days once we make our first product, we are we are in significant negotiations with counterparties from everywhere from beverage markets to ingredient, Mark food, ingredient markets, all the way into industrial markets. We have enough demand to take all of our production for next year, which is two to 200, £50 million of product and all of that at a at the previously discussed margins or better. So it's really up to us at this point to get the plant lined out up and running and get product on spec made, get it tested in all of these companies, the food companies, the industrials, have it pretty much ready to go get it fully tested and certified. And at that point, I don't think we'll have any shortage of demand for this. And even the next plant that we build, margins are hanging are actually are and where the range we talked about, which is kind of $0.65 to $0.9 a gallon uplift for those something we have to take into consideration, obviously the impact of the Gen one plant a little bit. But yes, generally speaking, we're very optimistic about that. We believe we will have significant offtakes in place because we are negotiating them right now for as the lion's share of everything we produce out of this plant, both from industrial and food use, especially into some of the ingredient markets that happened in fermentation. So it's it's a long time coming. We're really excited about it how we are going to do a grand opening in May of the site as well. And out. I think it's a great kickoff and our first sales should come as early as next week for this year, and we're excited about that as well. And you'll be the first to know, I assure you as our shareholders and and people that follow the Company.

Adam Samuelson

Okay. I appreciate all that color, and I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator

Kristen Owen, Oppenheimer.

Kristen Owen

Yes, great. Thank you for taking the question and a couple for me. Just just one clarification of buying and Mount Vernon.

Todd Becker

Are these back online and they're all buying is starting to ramp up a little bit. What we've done there. So everybody knows is we've done a major refresh on conveyors that were 17 years old, we are replacing literally every conveyor front-to-back. So the plants can run at higher capacities going forward. I mean, I think it's just some major refreshes that just have to happen occasionally, in addition at all buying or adding a new RTO. to allow us to run that for the Gen one plant harder and the Gen two plant for protein harder as well. We are a little undersized there and it is one of the we think premier plants in the United States and it just hasn't run to where we wanted to because of the conveyor project as well as the RTO. So that should be completed middle of the year. But we are already seeing some of the results because some of those conveyors are completed as we speak. So So generally speaking, it's not having as big of an impact in the second quarter as it had in the first quarter just because of where it was. But I think I think we will still see a little bit. But overall, the margins I gave you were the average across our total platform, including those at this point.

James Stark

So that's really what we're doing at those two plants, Karen and Christian, and I would add, as we indicated, we still should be in that mid 90% utilization rate. So that would include those plants having to run getting running back to their normalized levels, Deloitte.

Todd Becker

And lastly, when you look at the increased ability for a while to run back at 120 million to 130 million yards a year Madison has been limited to 100 million under 100 million gallons, a year because of permit that has now been unlocked as of yesterday to go to one 30 or one 40, potentially. We want to make sure that we do that responsibly based on the permit. But that's really just drive. That's really the big programs that drive our OpEx back down to where it should be per gallon.

Kristen Owen

Okay. One additional follow-up there. And then I'll ask my second question at the same time. Just I'm not giving up too much time here, but and the additional follow-up is, is there a plan included in that mid 90s capacity utilization and then sort of bigger question here is will be and given the improving curve, you've got the ramp of this. I think these other facilities, clean sugar commissioning. I mean, I think the question that investors frequently asked, if are, are we at the point where we're now seeing the trough in Green Plains earnings potential and that we should see upside from here? Is this the low point? And how do we get comfortable with?

Todd Becker

Yes. Thank you. Daryl said it never included in our numbers, but protein and protein will give you the update on how that ran during the quarter, but it's an excellent plant, one of the best probably in the world today. And one of the biggest in the world as well. So they do a great job of their amazing site, which is why we wanted to partner now with them on our on our joint venture facility with the improving curve with everything coming back online with improved capacities. Q1 quarters are always an adventure. I think everybody knows that at some court, some key ones are better than others. And some are worse than others. Part of are in a negative margin environment, along with the fact that we actually allocate SG&A compared to maybe some others. You know, it's just it's an outsized negative quarter. Typically, I think we have to take a more proactive approach when we do actually do see margins out forward and not get too worried about hedging off some higher margins in the first quarter when there are opportunities to do that. I think we went away from that a little bit. But generally speaking on the rest of the curve, we remain open. Actually, ST. and commissioning protein is ramping of oil prices. Hopefully, that's part of the trough to you got remember, oil oil share for the soy soy guys hitting multiyear lows at this point with oil in the low 40s. And now we're seeing protein prices rally again, we saw this a couple of years ago and protein really compressed the distillers grains. We've seen that mark. We've seen that as narrow here recently as $120 a ton, and now it's back up to $210 a ton in parts of the curve that helps our margin structure overall. But we really need some recovery in veg oil prices as we see some major major RD. plants coming on middle of the year as well. And so some of these plants have 50,000 barrels a day of production needs for veg oils. And if you think about that, that's more than the whole US and ethanol industry makes that's coming online later this year. So and I think we're troughing in a lot of different areas. I think a lower corn price, lower corn basis and lower natural gas prices when you add all those things up together, and I think we're going to start coming out of this and start to deliver what we talked about over the last several years.

Kristen Owen

Thank you. I'll take the rest offline.

Operator

Craig Irwin, Roth MKM.

Craig Irwin

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. So Todd, the progress here with some that carbon is exciting. And I guess we all look forward to the confirmation, if you've got, you've ordered the compression equipment given that the interconnects on sound like they're relatively straightforward. So my question is on with carbon coming online. The implication is SIS actually gets a lot more exciting, a lot more real. And the great numbers seem to line up for your Nebraska plants to be early suppliers in there. And can you maybe talk to us about whether or not you're having conversations about offtake for low-carbon ethanol? And is there specific interest out of the arm, a SaaS complex are people that are looking at building or already have capacity there. Can you help us frame out how long it will be before we see potential production with those gallons out of Nebraska?

Todd Becker

Interesting, yes. Thanks for the question. We're right now sizing the needs at this point. Expect what we've seen is a reduction of compression lead times from about 55 weeks to 40 weeks at this point with our partner in Nebraska, we're getting ready to put our order in as we kind of finalize the scope that should happen in the next few months of construction on their project is starting and then a final construction project starting the next few months as well. And we expect to start hopefully construction on ARC once we get once we get the compression ordered, we'll start. We'll start construction on our own interconnects in our plants as well as the building. So we're very excited about it.
Look, I think we're going to start everything last half of the year to be on last half of next year. You would have asked me a few months ago with kind of what we were thinking about the SAFATJ. guidance that was going to come out, I would say it's a stretch, but that alcohol could potentially qualify and we weren't really sure. But we always have we are we always keep the faith. But generally speaking, what we saw come out gives us more confidence that our Nebraska, early alcohol that qualifies to be put into SAP will be very a very valuable product, and it will give people confidence to build these plants at this point because I think until these rules came out you just didn't really know whether alcohol could qualify. So when you go look at the guidance, if you have a lower CI. plant like our Nebraska plants are the starting point and you deduct the 30 plus points for carbon capture under the new guidance you do qualify and then look the low-carbon smart frac or the carbon smart practices on the farm, make it even more beneficial and more, and it will give people courage to build up all of the jet plants, I think going forward and even before that we were engaged in multiple different discussions and post the new guidance, what can we do to enter into agreements to have commit early gallons to somebody that wants to build a early ATJ plant, and there's a lot of that going on out there today.
So when you take a look at the value of an asset in the middle of Nebraska, that's going to be on an early decarbonized situation because of the early potential of the of the pipeline have already built in Nebraska. That's a very, very valuable option, which is why we have to look at Wood River and Central City today to say where can we de-bottleneck without a significant capital cost, $30 million to $40 million gallons per plant and take advantage of the early 45 G. because we're going to be two years of 45 Z with those plants. That is there's not a lot of the people in the world that have that up position, especially especially outside of Nebraska. So on top of that, we have York, which we believe is honestly, it's one of the oldest plants in the country, and we're still going to put some money in there to get our carbon score down. We don't have to do a big capital investment just to take advantage of 45 Z because it's so beneficial. But I have to tell you we contemplated what is a real what does a new cost build? What does the new cost to build? And quite frankly, it's two, 50 a gallon all in. And so when you look at that relative to the 45 Z, it might work, but as to 50 a gallon all and even if you have a great site so that I think the market's going to contemplate those type of things.
When you look at the US insatiable alcohol digest demand that could that could transpire at lunch.

Phil Boggs

So my my next question's related to sort of ethanol and ethanol macro demand for run rate where we're starting off this year quite a bit better than last year, even though the crusher of negative $0.04 was I'm not what anybody wanted. But this year we've got exports and we've got some other nice tailwinds, like I guess. So the issue is an airline industry with some we see prices going up and then which been canceled because of plane availability and some of the other complications out there. It looks like dumb miles driven to be up nicely the summer, too. Again, gasoline demand bullish, bullish for ethanol. Can you maybe just help us frame out a little bit more precisely what you think on up on exports this year, I'm hearing that Brazil is going to have an awful sugarcane crop. That means they could actually be an importer of as an exporter there's other benefits maybe from Mexico or Canada. Can you maybe help us understand the size of the gap and and what do you think the export contribution can bring? And I don't know if you want to comment on the airline and miles driven issue, but anything to help us understand how this supply demand gap.
It gets narrowed this summer boats narrowing as we speak. I mean, we are starting to see some stocks draws.

Todd Becker

We do. We'd like to see production come down a little bit more. But generally speaking, we saw some stock draws over the last couple of weeks, not big enough, though, to have a outsized impact yet because we have really even haven't even hit summer driving season yet. So we're watching that closely, you are correct. And we do believe last half of the year, we could see Brazil reappear as a demand driver. In addition to we continue to have strong demand out of places like Canada and other markets around the world, just because of which we just priced so well into some of those markets. And they still have low carbon needs as well. So generally speaking, as we looked out forward, it was we expected some of the margin recovery that happened already. But if we can get a few things to have to to break our way, we could see a significant increase. In the last half of last year, we generated about $100 million or so across the platform. We think we can we can the opportunities to do better than that. If we can get some things break our way, especially with some of the ability to run our plants at more efficiently at better rates. And so overall, the macros are starting to turn and look favorable as shown by certainly the recent uptick in the forward curve.
One thing we have to watch as corn prices. We don't we've got to get the crop planted. We agree plantings last week at 25%. We'll wait to see what happens on Monday. Again, probably a little bit lower than we'll think just because of the rain this week, and we have a rainy season ahead of us. But generally speaking, I anybody that buys corn because we're not going to get a crop planted is a bit of a fool's game at this point. It's very early. Our view as a crop will get planted acres are going to ground, and I think that will be very favorable to ethanol.

James Stark

I think Greg just gave a little more color on exports. We think we'll be somewhere between 1.7, 1.8 billion exported in that, that really doesn't include anything from upside from Brazil. So when you look at kind of our leading export markets, it's Canada, United Kingdom, India, Netherlands, Columbia, South Korea. They're all it's very well spread across across the universe in Brazil, Colombia, and it could be helpful to even more stronger export demand for U.S.

Phil Boggs

Excellent thank you both for taking my questions. Congratulations on the progress with Hydro.

Todd Becker

I like the hydro.
Thank you.
Thanks to that.

Operator

And we will take our next question from Andrew Strelzik with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Andrew Strelzik

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. And I actually wanted to follow up on that last comment on Hon Hai Pro and it does sound like your comments, though, the volume is kind of tracking. You reiterated the 2030%, but I wanted to ask about the economics of that revenue stream high progress or sequence data specifically, we've certainly seen the broader protein markets evolve in recent months, and we've heard some demand sensitivity around premium ingredients generally. So just curious what you're seeing think in terms of protein economics versus kind of your initial expectations in those conversations. And you're right on all the protein economics, we've seen that definitely compress across any body and makes any type of premium ingredient with the availability of some of these products that have come on to the market, which is why we want to have escape velocity from from some of these lower proteins. And we're focused really on 60 Pro sequence and above what's unique about the 60 price sequence is that it's a very different type of product that is made in a fermenter that has specific characteristics that taste and texture characteristics that our customers are looking for as a designed product. We have seen that corn gluten meal market compress as well.
So we've got to kind of watch that overall. And generally speaking, we believe our product is a premium and minimum corn gluten meal, if not a significant premium to that depending on the use case in the world. So look, we're overall these are just markets that ebb and flow. You've seen a significant recovery in the last couple of last week or so and protein markets. So they've been bid up. We'll see what Argentina does. I won't make some of the same comments. Argentina have been in the past, but generally speaking, it's still a bit of a wildcard, and I think it's proven itself on the last couple of weeks. But when we look at 60 Pro, it's just the first step we have with some of our biggest customers, somebody labeling you can't. This is a very different type of product. And so with one of our potential big customers that we've been talking to for three years. They finally got labeling approved for this product after many, many tests, many, many use cases and how we're going to label the product, you have to remember, this is a combination protein and East and within that used to weaken, Leslie and the team are working on new technologies to embed in that East that we will work with our customers on was just it's just a very different product and I don't think you should count out even higher proteins from there. We've made significant breakthroughs on the bench and at lab scale on higher protein products. And I think that's our next step with this with this platform sequence of the platform and and while certainly the base protein markets you've seen it. There's an avalanche coming of high-protein soybean meal. But generally speaking, the market seems to be taking it. It was never really a big concern of ours that the market would absorb, it might be chunky funding wasn't absorbed it. We go back to potentially where we were in the past, might take a few years.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then my second question in the prepared remarks, in particular around CapEx, you made some comments around financing. I don't know if you can elaborate on that. And then just kind of relatedly more broadly as you think about on evolving the asset base towards some of the very exciting opportunities that you've talked about, whether that's expansion in Nebraska or more dextrose opportunities, you know how you think about the capacity to fund those currently or the plans behind those would be great. Thank you.
Yes, thanks. I'll talk on the latter point Jim can talk a little bit about on kind of our financing strategies because I think we're in we're in the middle of that trying to trying to kind of change our debt around and reduce our debt cost. But generally speaking, that's what we have to do. We have to always look at and be and be quite frankly, realistic with ourselves and what we can do today and where we should allocate capital.
When you look at the 45, the opportunity with guaranteed credits that are going to be multiple years ahead of anybody else in the Brent and with Nebraska coming online, we have got to really be honest and take a look to say where should we allocate capital. Those are pretty good returns to expand and do a little bit of an expansion there. First, because of the margin structure that's in place for the first two years of 45 Z and because we have besides one other one or the person in Nebraska, we have the most gallons in Nebraska today. We have got to take advantage of that of that position. And for our shareholders and for our balance sheet because it's such a generation of high free cash flow returns relative to anything else we can do as quickly as of that on top of that clean sugar when we want to make sure we're number one. We're in, we're in site selection now. It's between three or four states, and there's been a bit of competition there. And then on top of that, when we do make site selection, we want to make sure on that. We do that with customers in mind and customers that want us to build it and not just just put another dextrose facility on the market. So we think those will come we will build it alongside commitments from customers to take the product. And that's how that's how exciting this is. So yes, we'll have to look at how we finance that next clean sugar facility. It's certainly not just cash off the balance sheet, but that's why once we have a lot of unencumbered assets, we have plenty of spare capacity. I would say first and foremost, we would look at at putting some some debt against some of those newbuilds, especially in sugar. I think I think we can do Nebraska off the balance sheet in terms of either financing it with unencumbered capacity and or cash. And I think that will drive our returns to them to give us free cash flow has to do with the other things. Again, I come back to building that seven I'm Etsy site once we've kind of what's it once the team really makes significantly more traction on 60% protein as well.

James Stark

And I would add, Andrew, that there's been no shortage of infrastructure partners who want to look into financing carbon capture equipment. We do have firm funding in place as we get closer to finalizing that. And when we can come to you. And I'd say that we've made the commitment. We've gotten everything ready and a schedule for building will provide more details. But as we said on the last call, we're probably somewhere around $100 million in capital for the three three Nebraska plants today. And again, very, I think Todd reiterated earlier that that's a one year payback based on the EBITDA are actually under that based on the EBITDA it will generate. So from a standpoint of being able to find longer-term capital at a good rate has not been any shortage of that for us when we look to put dollars around the carbon capture equipment that we were going to deploy in Nebraska.

Todd Becker

Andrew, one last thing I'll just tell you this. There's also besides what Jim just said, there's no shortage of people that will monetize your forward cash flows as soon as you start sequestering carbon and you have 45 D backed credits you can get for you can get very interesting advances on future cash flows at very interesting rates at very interesting advance rates so that that there's plenty of that that is starting to look at it. We've also seen, I think, more interestingly, demand for voluntary credits starting to to rear its head here. And it's not coming from. I would say, an airline or a transportation company, it's coming from technology. I mean, it's coming from commitments that players have made to decarbonize because of the increased use of coal data center emissions and electricity. There's those are there's significant demand showing up for high quality carbon credits generated off of biogenic carbon, where we'll look at where will it go? I don't know, but I don't think there should be any thought that our view is it's a starting point of $50 a ton, maybe a little bit lower to start, but generally speaking, there's there's a you can actually make a case for significantly higher biogenic carbon credit values, even with the lower low-carbon fuel standard values in California.
Got it. Very helpful comments. I appreciate it very much.
Thank you.

Operator

And we will take our next question from Manav Gupta with UBS. Your line is open.

Manav Gupta

So my question relates more to what you think on the corn oil pricing side because as you pointed out, I think Martinez is ramping from 22,000 barrels towards 50,000 barrels. And then Rodeo is ramping from 28,000 towards 50 again. So big demand pull coming on that side. But as some of these operators are also saying is look, we are starting this soybean oil in some cases, refined soybean oil because it's easier to process, but Muncie all get along the learning curve, we will move over to a lower CI feedstock. So I'm just trying to understand obviously, as these new plants start up, the demand for vegetable oil will go up. Do you think that proportional significant significantly bigger increase because the carbon intensity on oil is so much lower than soybean oil that fuel demand pull on corn oil is even harder than soybean oil as these new plants start?

Todd Becker

Well, I mean a 50,000 barrel day plant is more than the US ethanol industry produces every day and corn oil. So we're very excited that that plan that those plants are going to ramp up later later this year.
And when you look at it any way any way you shape it maybe during this year, they can start off with soybean oil. But when you look at the economics next year and the going away of the biodiesel tax credit and the advantage that corn oil has in the 45 Z and 40 be right, Devon and 40 be economics, there's no going to be no shortage of corn oil needs next year. And again, I think we're starting to see some pressure on imports of Yuko, but we're putting more pressure on on on the U.S. government to say what are we really importing? Somebody has got to figure out that that's not all Chinese used cooking oil, otherwise known as what we would say, palm oil. So we're going to put a lot of pressure on on those sources as well. But but generally speaking, when all went it, there will be a moment in time when you have all of these big plants hitting and they're going to need all of all of just about everything they can buy, especially in a low-carbon oil and even recently, we maintain our advantage and Devin can talk a little bit about that basis. The new guidance, it just came out. We maintain our advantage on corn oil.
Correct, Evan, that's correct?
Yes. So the the new modeling, and we expect that to tie into 45 C, which the administration has told us they're going to start working on before the end because even dry on 40 b., but you've got your corn oil, which is at an advantage to soybean oil and even with the Climate Smart Ag practices that they allow for soybeans. It only allows them to reduce their carbon intensity by about five points or so. Corn oil should still be at an advantage now. They do expect them to expand all those Climate Smart Ag practices across the board in 45 G., which could help soybean oil, but it will also help us on the US corn ethanol side.
Thank you.

Operator

And we will take our next question from Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Carol Zhang

Hi, this is Carol Zhang on for Laurence Alexander. Thank you for taking the question. Just two follow-ups on the protein side. Firstly, the protein platform profit already at the EBITDA level or at the cash flow level. And if not, what level do you think you see to hit the cash flow breakeven, and I will ask all of them like the second one is, do large buyers get either a volume discount or less volatility in prices as incentives Thank you.

Todd Becker

Yes, I think so. So when we initially built these assets are generally generally, we thought it would be more like a three to three to four year return. Just on 50 Pro and more of a two to three year return on 60 Pro. I think we probably lost the term generally speaking because of veg oils compression, at least a turn, maybe maybe max turning point on veg oil for compression and also protein compression that we're starting to see that widen back out. The big thing for us will be to go as fast as we can to sell as much as we can have our sequence product. And we're starting to starting to see significant interest in that product, not just from the world, but also from U.S. potential opportunities as well. So it's a difficult product to make us not just a set it and forget it. So we have there are some some capital associated with those projects as well. And then the biology biology is still something that we have exclusivity and some ownership in as well. So but generally speaking, we continue to work every day to also increase our availability of 60 Pro with less biology and but doing some doing some other IP that we've that we've discovered as well as again don't count out any issue. Nobody should count on the fact that we believe we can make even higher protein at this point. And we're going to start to think about that in the future as well.
On top of that, I would say, look, large buyer, small buyer. We want to get the maximum price that we can. We have we have moat we have of several, if not lots of buyers around the world. And generally speaking, I mean, the market is the market on some of this stuff. We fit into the ration at a certain at a certain volume and those buyers will be limited by what they put into the ration. So we need to have a wide variety of buyers. Our focus is on expanding our international buying base because they we think the margins are better to do that. But but generally speaking, the market seems to be settling in at certain price levels, and we're just we'll be competitive to that. But overall, our focus fully is getting to a much higher ratio of 60 product 50 Pro.

Operator

That's helpful.

Phil Boggs

Thank you.

Todd Becker

Thank you.

Operator

Our final question will come from Steve Byrne with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Steve Byrne

Atara, you recently toured the Lonza jet alcohol to jet plant down in Georgia and they're bringing in the ethanol from Brazil have reportedly due to a lower carbon intensity. My question for you is, can you be competitive with that came but gas sourced alcohol from carbon capture. Do you also need to pull these other levers like, you know, sourcing, low carbon corn, et cetera? And disease does the premium you get on that ethanol is it likely to offset those costs?
Yes, there's lots is while they're bringing in early alcohol in our view, I'm just looking and this is our view. We don't we don't really know everything that they do. Bye, that is because of the program that's in place today with the announcement this week on the rules, one of the things that we've seen as an industry is that hub ourselves and our and everybody from airlines to energy companies to even larger that you're talking about are all pressing and in favor of some of the rules that came out this week. So it really was a matter of timing and the grid program, everybody is waiting for that modeling. So generally speaking, yes, we're competitive. We just had to get to it. We have to you have to sequester carbon to make that first ability. And then when you do that, your carbon, your alcohol will qualify for alcohol to jet climate. Smart is just a kicker after that that even lowers your carbon score more. So when you take a look at the carbon score out of Brazil, which is probably in the 20 range or so, Devin, is that 20 to 30 range CI. in that range when you take a plant out in Nebraska like a central city that starts at 55 or so and you take 30 off of it for minimum 30 offer carbon capture, you're down to 25, take 10 more off to for Climate Smart you're down to 15 take five more off for post compression carbon, you're down to 10. We could easily easily be lower than several circuits to shut some sugarcane sources in Brazil. And even potentially some corn sources as well. So that's the opportunity. And the rules are there. They are now make corn ethanol that sits on a carbon capture pipeline to start competitive and is a will be a plentiful feedstock for for these technologies. And I would tell you, notwithstanding what I said, I don't know much going on down there except to say that Atlanta has been a huge supporter as well of corn US corn to jet alcohol to jet as they see that as a absolute needed to get to any scale Devin, do you have any else?
I'll just add one clarifying point on that, Steve. You know that the other reason that they're bringing the Brazil sugarcane ethanol, that's the only RFS pathway that exists for alcohol to jet. So they want to be able to get the rent to stack on top of the credit. So the industry is also working to make sure that we get corn ethanol pathways through the RFS in addition to the work on the 40 b. and the forthcoming 45 Z credits and also just want to qualify or clarify for corn alcohol to jet, it's only U.S. based corn that can qualify under the 40 b. guidance. There's no Brazil corn ethanol that can qualify.
Very good. Just one follow up on that. And again, it refers to Lonza. They have the biological process to convert CO2 into alcohol. Just wondering as an alternative to building new capacity at the $2.50 a gallon on CapEx. You mentioned, Todd, had you considered that technology as an alternative to carbon capture and as an alternative to new capacity expansion?

Todd Becker

Yes, we've seen CO2 to alcohol in multiple different paths over the last 10 years. It's starting with some Texas companies that had it as well. And so look, our view is in order to do it at scale in mass, you need industrial agricultural practices, more yields per acre, which is why, by the way, our indirect land use numbers got better. If you want real volume of alcohol, it's going to have to come from traditional ethanol pathways, especially when you can just volumetrically you just not in our view, the best way to get to significant volumes of alcohol is going to be from traditional sugar cane and our corn in any real volumes. Those are all interesting technologies and look, I think everything everything is on the table today. But generally speaking, our view is that the single best way to get to significant volume increases needed for the ability to satisfy.
Yes, all of the jet standards that targets that are in place, it's going to have to come from the US market.
Very good. Thank you.
Thank you.

Operator

We will take our final question from Jordan Levy with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Jordan Levy

Wondering, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now, Jordan.
Yes, sorry about that, Henry on for Jordan here. Appreciate you taking the question just looking at the protein business and some of your commentary on this call. Just wondering if anything's changed significantly kind of in Europe long term thesis for the broader now 50 Pro and 60 Pro markets demand is looking strong as expected, both this year and then kind of in out years. I mean, as we said, you have significant changes that happen in the U.S. soy crushing industry with significant capacity coming on this year and next year. Generally speaking, our long-term view is still the world will expand protein demand, notwithstanding it could be chunky for a few years. But overall, as we accelerate away from 50 PRO into a much less supplied market of 60 Pro Plus and sequence and even higher about higher protein concentrations from there. That's just a different type of market that that isn't necessarily oversupplied at this point, but just needs to get acceptance into specific rations. So generally speaking, we'll probably see over the next kind of 12 to 24 months, continued compression in the 54 or less markets just because of the amount of soy coming out. But right now it looks it looks better than it did as as protein values are rally and because of the because of the because of the problems that are in that range, et cetera, in Brazil and Argentina.
Lastly, I can just say it's not just about protein. It's not just about oil. It's really about what we see demand for our products and sugar because it's low carbon spend in the alcohol as well. And we are getting interest across the board on every one of our products because of the low carbon profile that we have. And you can see that in our We just released our new sustainability report, take a look at it. It's something that we believe is very unique to Green Plains and what we can do across the board, especially in Nebraska next year as we begin to capture our carbon in 2025 and have an early mover advantage, low carbon low carbon ingredients while maybe not as how early important to some companies because of some of the <unk> blowback internally, part of the reason we are seeing demand for all of our products across the board because we can produce low-carbon ingredients 30 to 40 lower percent lower carbon intensity in our in our sugar products, same for our protein products, lower carbon intensity and alcohol next year and especially the advantage of our low carbon intense oils. So generally speaking, it's not just going to be all about whether there's enough demand or not demand it's also going to be based on what we can produce in that area as well.

Phil Boggs

Great.

Todd Becker

Thanks for.

James Stark

Thanks for all the color there.

Todd Becker

And just a quick follow up. You guys have any incremental updates on the progress for the new blade ECJ plan? I know that's kind of a long way out, but just curious how that kind of bleed in your longer term strategy for SA?
Yes. I mean, scaling a catalyst is always challenging, and that's proving out as well in that venture. But that's not the only thing that venture was set up for. We are definitely continuing to look at the catalysts that with the with the P&L that we that we've got control of, but also to look at the fact that again, you know, we're partnered with Tallgrass united on that venture. You know that we're going to be on a Nebraska pipeline and you can you can go Google who that's with. And then basically you can see that that partnership is strong. And generally speaking, we'll have some of the earliest low-carbon alcohol gallons that can go into jet fuel of anybody in the world in volume in big volume. And I think that that will be a good, strong potential opportunity for all of our partners. And we'll see where it goes from there. But that is also a not just a partnership that is focused on one single catalyst. We're really technologically technologically agnostic, say that it's a strong partnership between infrastructure supply and demand and nothing else exists like that. So we're also going to look at other technologies as well.

Operator

And that concludes our question and answer session today. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Todd Becker for closing remarks.

Todd Becker

Hey, everybody. Thanks for getting on the call that you see a lot going on. We're making a lot of progress in all of our strategic areas. We continue to believe we have a very valuable asset base. We're looking at everything you can imagine from the mix of our assets, the size of our assets, what should be and what should be out. We're looking at our balance sheet to say how do we continue to be in a very strong position from a cash and a debt perspective as we have significant assets that are still unencumbered and we have no near-term maturities. And I think when we look at the future, Green Plains is not just it while might be evolving every which way we can we believe still are on target for some of the some of the things that we laid out several years ago, notwithstanding a weak first quarter, and we're looking forward to the rest of the year and updating you in the next couple of quarters. So thanks for everybody on the call.
And thanks for your continued support.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.